UK Conservative Party Claims Labour Chief Keir Starmer Wants to ‘Undo’ Brexit – News18

Labour leader Keir Starmer’s recent comments on UK-EU relationship has led the Conservative Party to claim that the opposition leader wants to effectively undo Brexit, the Guardian said in a report.

Tory leader and environment minister Mark Spencer said the Labour party tends to look at pre-Brexit time with ‘pink-tinted’ glasses. “The prime minister is delivering that Brexit and now we are an independent country, separate from the EU, but we can still trade with them and still cooperate with them, but on our own terms.,” Spencer was quoted as saying by GB News.

“We’ve got to get over the fact that we voted to leave the European Union, we need to embrace that, make the most of it – as we are doing – and stop looking backwards as the Labour Party appear to want to do,” he further added.

The controversy erupted after Keir Starmer, while addressing an event in Canada where liberal and centre-left politicians had gathered, said that the UK is in a ‘conflict’ because it “wants to diverge and do different things to the rest of our EU partners”, referring to the environmental, food and employment laws.

“We don’t want to diverge, we don’t want to lower standards, we don’t want to rip up environmental standards, standards for people that work, food standards and all the rest of it,” Starmer said.

Since last week Starmer has been busy outlining how a future UK-EU relationship would look like if the Labour are voted to power and that has led to attacks from the Conservatives.

“I think those kinds of comments about not wanting to diverge will worry a lot of people that what he really wants to do is to unpick Brexit,” UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt said. “Keir voted remain. Then he backed a second referendum. Then he didn’t. Now he wants to rejoin the EU in all but name,” UK foreign secretary James Cleverley said.

Starmer created controversy when he said that he will negotiate a returns agreement with EU nations to send some of the unsuccessful asylum seekers back if Labour is voted to power. He also told French President Emmanuel Macron that he wants to strengthen UK-France relations.

He also penned an opinion piece in the Financial Times where he said that he will pursue a major rewrite of the Brexit deal.